Contact details

My area of interest is social and economic history of later medieval England, although I tend to lean more towards the social than the economic. I am endlessly fascinated by peasants of all periods, but especially of the 13th and 14th centuries.

Feedback and office hours

My welfare office hours during term time only are Tuesday mornings from 9 to 12 and Thursday afternoons from 2-3. It is not necessary to make an appointment to see me during these times.

Qualifications

BA University of Sussex

MPhil University of Cambridge

PhD University of Birmingham

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Biography

I am a Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Birmingham. I completed my BA Degree in History at the University of Sussex in the School of Cultural and Community Studies. The emphasis on interdisciplinary and comparative methods alongside social history there has influenced my research ever since.

I left Sussex after completion of my BA Degree, in order to gain a postgraduate qualification in medieval history at the University Cambridge. Here I completed an MPhil degree in late medieval history.

I then moved to the University of Birmingham where I wrote my doctoral thesis of a comparative study of two peasant communities in later medieval England, supervised by Professor C. Dyer. I completed my PhD thesis in 2001. I have taught in the Department of Medieval History in the School of History and Cultures at the University of Birmingham ever since.

Second year

Critical Analysis: ‘The Politics of Popular Revolt in the Middle Ages’

Optional Unit: Women and Gender in Medieval Society

Optional Unit: Childhood and Adolescence in Medieval Society

Group Research: The Many Headed Monster, Peasant Revolt in Later Medieval England

Third year

Famine and the Black Death: Social and Economic Change in Medieval England

Dissertation Supervision currently on various topics of social and economic history in the Later Middle Ages, including peasant communities, women in medieval society, chivalry, the trial of Joan of Arc, fashion, representations of female sexuality and childbirth as well as peasant revolts

Advanced Option: The Black Death in Medieval Europe

Specialist Subject: Village Societies in the Later Middle Ages

Postgraduate

A range of seminars across the MA programme, including an Option on Popular Protest and Revolt in Medieval Europe.

MA in West Midlands History, Medieval module ' People and Places in the West Midlands'

Postgraduate supervision

I am happy to discuss the possibility of supervising postgraduate research in the areas of social and economic history in later medieval England, including peasant communities, seigniorialism, medieval agriculture and the rural economy, law and order, the history of women and gender.

Current research students

Toby Best, PhD, part - time, 'The later medieval estate of Winchcombe Abbey and its Manors. '

Janine Bryant, PhD part - time, 'Finding Witnesses to Life in the Later Middle Ages – the Lives of People as seen through the Medieval Coroners’ Rolls of Four Counties'

Research

I am currently working on a book comparing village communities in later 13th and early 14th century ( pre-Black Death) England. The working title is: Strife, Conflict and Keeping the Peace; Three English Manors over three Generations, Ca. 1290- 1350. Of particular interest to me is the way communal identities are shaped, and which factors ( including for instance economic, seigniorial and geographic elements) contribute to similarities and differences in a variety of communal interactions, from gender relationships and the status of women in their villages, to landholding patterns , the negotiation of conflict, village self-policing and the construction of social -local- memories. Ultimately I feel that the answer to many bigger questions including, for example: What was the staus of women in medieval villages? How did peasants see themselves? How did peasants relate to lordship? How did peasants resolve conflict? What did peasants argue about and why? - can be sought fruitfully in studies of microhistory, the detailed examination of records of individual manors, and this is what I primarily try to do.

I have always been ( and still am) interested in gender, village society, social conflict, especially conflict between lords and peasants, and how such conflict was expressed.

Other activities

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Editorial board for the journal of Midland History

Member of Medieval Settlement Research Group and Agricultural History Society.

Member of the European Rural History Organisation (EURHO)

Co-organiser of The People, Places and Things Seminars in Local and Regional History

Miriam Müller, ‘Peasants, Lords and Developments in Leasing in Later Medieval England’, in: B. van Bavel and P. Schofield, eds., Emergence and Early Development of lease holding in the European Countryside during the Middle Ages, (CORN series, vol. 10., Brepols, December 2008).

Expertise

Later medieval English social and economic history, and in particular the history of the English peasantry (ca. 1200-1500); peasant revolts, esp. 1381, and small scale peasant unrest in individual manors and villages; medieval peasant communities and their internal dynamics, including conflict, kinship networks and communal policing; history of gender in the medieval village, and the position and status of peasant women.